


Moments of Insight

by TheFallingApple



Category: Castle
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-07-23
Updated: 2012-08-04
Packaged: 2017-11-10 12:58:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 2,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/466551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheFallingApple/pseuds/TheFallingApple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some glimpses inside Beckett's head during moments throughout the series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Anatomy of a Murder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This vignette is from _Anatomy of a Murder._

**Fall 2010**

_“What did you do this morning, Castle?”_

_“Made waffles.”_

She can see right away that she’s hurt him. It’s not the puppy dog pout he gets when she gets in a particularly pointed barb. This time he’s actually injured. She’s not even sure what she was trying to prove. Sure, he’d been teasing too: _“Urologist? Proctologist? Don’t tell me he’s a gynecologist.”_ But he’d been playful; she’d been hurtful, maybe even deliberately so.

In the same breath she put him in the contender box with Josh and then slapped him back for having the audacity to be there. It makes her think she isn’t as over her aborted attempt to share her feelings as she pretends to be, and that a part of her still wants to blame Castle for her wounded heart. 

There’s a certain symmetry to the shock she felt at Gina’s presence in the precinct, and in Castle’s life, and the gob-smacked look on Castle’s face when she introduced Josh to the team. She honest enough to admit to herself that she felt some satisfaction in his discomfort, and human enough to recognize that it’s one thing to be insensitive in ignorance and another thing altogether to be intentional about it.

The really ironic thing is that she’s always admired the fact that he’s the kind of dad who would get up early on a weekday to make his daughter waffles before she leaves for school.


	2. Flowers for Your Grave

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This vignette is from _Flowers for Your Grave._

**Fall 2008**

 

Beckett has had to work to stay annoyed with Richard Castle, otherwise risk revealing the truth: that she’s always admired him and up close his bad boy charm is entirely too sexy. Of course, her obvious irritation has only caused him to redouble his efforts. She has to admit that she’s been enjoying the game. His flirtation is flattering. It makes her feel like a woman again – a desirable woman, even. But that’s all it is, because he’s clearly dangerous, and not someone you should expect to toy with and escape with your dignity intact. She says as much when he asks her to dinner. 

_“What, so that I can be one of your conquests?”_

She’s not sure how she expects him to respond, perhaps with a denial, but what he does suggest surprises her.

_“Or I could be one of yours.”_

The idea that in a social match between police detective and celebrity author, she’d have the upper hand seems laughable but oddly intoxicating. She thinks it takes a pretty confident man to show his hand like that, but the look he gives her makes her think he’d prefer it that way. That he not only sees that she’s a strong and commanding woman, but that he especially admires those qualities in her.

It makes her bold. And so in return, she toys with him, leaning in, her breath brushing his ear.

_“You’ve no idea.”_

She knows she’s probably playing with fire, but just to get him back for all the come-ons she’s deflected, she adds a little extra sway in the hips as she saunters away. It can’t hurt. After all, she’ll never see him again, right?


	3. A Rose for Everafter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This vignette is from _A Rose for Everafter_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to **soxie_whittaker** for her great feedback and to **callsign_buzz** for encouraging me to just post already.

**January 2010**

It’s the most clichéd of romance plots. The seemingly ordinary girl seduced by a rich, handsome playboy who falls hopelessly in love with her and gives up his philandering ways. Beckett’s ashamed to admit to having played out that fantasy in her head a few times since meeting Castle. But that’s all it is – a fantasy. Because with two divorces under his belt and who knows how many flings, it’s clear he’s not the type for romance novel happily ever-afters. Holding onto this certainty is how she writes off the occasional flutters in her belly that go hand in hand with their innuendo-laden flirtation. 

Knowing this makes it easier to flirt and deflect. To tease and be teased. She’s so sure that’s all it is.

But then a body drops in the midst of a wedding, and she sees something she’s never seen before on Castle’s face. There’s no mistaking the longing in the way he looks at Kyra.

_“She’s the one who got away.”_

Somehow Beckett had assumed that Castle didn’t have it in him to love in the way that risked his heart. Sure, there have been flashes of sincerity and friendship behind his charm. But tenderness? Love?

_“I didn’t think you went for real.”_

The full force of the realization doesn’t hit until she’s saying the words and she’s ashamed as soon as they fall from her lips. Beckett’s never liked being proven wrong, but this error in judgment stabs more deeply than most. She’s had a privileged place in Castle’s world, been trusted with his family, called him a friend, but she hasn’t let herself see the real man behind the cardboard cutout character he shares with the world.

When she tries to reach out, asking about his breakup with Kyra, she can tell by the way he brushes off her inquiry that he’s disappointed in her. And that’s the most upsetting thing of all.


	4. Rise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This vignette is from _Rise_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to **callsign_buzz** for a very helpful and insightful beta read and to **carmen_sandiego** and **wrldpossibility** for helping me to interpret the scene.

**June 2011**

The first time she sees Castle after the shooting it’s like she’s finally able to let out a breath she’s been holding for days. Josh, and everything he’s saying, fades into the background. For the moment, at least, she feels like she can start to get her bearings and find a way forward.

The flowers are awkward. At some point he’ll figure out that as a gesture it doesn’t work for them. The little things he does for her every day are so much more personal and meaningful. The fact that he’s fallen back on something as generic as a bouquet is a sign that he’s feeling out of his element.

_“I never thought I’d see you again.”_

Even when he’s at the top of his game, Castle is an open book to her. He doesn’t hide his feelings well, nor does he usually try. Today though, the fear and pain and love are so vivid on his face that it eclipses everything else. He’s like the CliffsNotes version of himself, distilled down to the superficial plot of ‘Rick loves Kate.’ But she needs the nuance, the part of their story that is detective and writer, the full history of Castle and Beckett. It’s the familiar piece of her life she knows she’s going to depend on in order to recover from this setback.

This though, this naked emotion, is something she’s not ready for. She can’t let him look at her with that in his eyes every day. 

_“You don’t remember me tackling you?”_

It’s not something she’s planned or even consciously thought about, but when he brings it up, she sees a way out.

_“I don’t remember much of anything.”_

While she’s actually forming the words she has to look away, because as much as she hides from him in one way or another, she hasn’t made a practice of lying to him. When she turns back to him, she has to harden herself against the heartbroken look he gives her. 

_“You don’t remember…”_ He trails off, swallows, as if deciding what he can afford to risk. She meets his eyes with a silent plea, and he continues, _“The gunshot?”_

She nods, knowing as she does that he sees right through her. She gives him a desperate look, begging him with her eyes to let it drop. The next time he says ‘I love you’ she wants to be able to say it back. She wants to stop hiding from this thing between them and be able to let him all the way in. But she’s not ready to be Kate to his Rick. So she lies.

From there, Beckett can feel herself unraveling, any semblance of control she had over the conversation dissipating. It’s as if she woke up into a world that’s shifted to the left and she can’t navigate the changes. She says the wrong thing, managing to pick a fight with Castle in the process. 

They’re approaching the point at which she is likely to say something hurtful to avoid hearing something heartfelt, so she claims fatigue. 

_“Of course. We’ll talk tomorrow.”_

_“Is it okay if we don’t? I just need a little bit of time.”_

_“Sure. How much time?”_

The way he tries to pin her down makes her even more determined to get him out of the room before he pulls the truth from her. He may be the CliffsNotes version, but she can see hints of the real Castle stubbornness.

In the end he leaves, hurt, and resigned to what she’s asking of him. It’s not the first time she’s taken him for granted, but it ranks up there as one of the worst examples, and she hates herself for assuming he’ll eventually forgive her.

Mostly though, she wonders if she’s destroyed any chance of ever getting her full-text version of Castle back.


	5. The Dead Pool

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This vignette is from _The Dead Pool_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to **soxie_whittaker** and **callsign_buzz** , for their helpful comments and thoughts. Thank you so much for the insights!

**Spring 2011**

There’s an elephant in the room with them. If Beckett’s honest with herself, it’s been there since the disasters with Demming and Gina, if not before. Now though, it’s growing, fueled by everything she and Castle have lived through in the last few months. 

You can’t have that many near death experiences with someone without cracking some of the barriers you’ve put up to hide what really simmers below the surface. But they pretend he hasn’t seen through those cracks. They ignore the kiss that started as an undercover ruse and became something more. They ignore the things said and not said in desperate moments. And the elephant grows, getting so big that sometimes it feels like it’s sucking all of the air out of the room.

Something about this case, though, or about the presence of Alex Conrad, seems to have tamed the beast. Alex is harmless and because of that she feels glimmers of ‘before’ – of those times when the flirting was innocent and the insinuation harmless. In turn, it makes her bolder with Castle than she’s been lately.

_”You didn’t want him to spend time with me.”_

She’d been expecting a denial, or at the very least a quippy deflection, so she pushes and is taken aback by the forthrightness of his admission. He looks straight at her and tells her the truth.

_“Yes. Fine. It’s true. I was jealous.”_

Of course, he’s only admitting to jealousy of a fellow writer, nothing about the bigger elephant in the room. For the moment she can take his admission at face value, and appreciate the honesty in the sentiment. Later, though, it’s what makes her realize that she’s been expecting, or at least hoping for, some move on his part. It’s completely unfair, to Castle and to Josh. Castle is a lot of things, but he’s not one to interfere in someone else’s relationship, and Josh doesn’t deserve someone who is looking elsewhere.

She is now forced to admit, if only to herself, that that’s exactly what she’s doing. 

As it turns out the elephant was just sleeping. It wakes, and she can feel her throat tighten as she watches the space around her fill again.


	6. A Chill Goes Through Her Veins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This vignette is from _A Chill Goes Through Her Veins_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to **soxie_whittaker** and **callsign_buzz** , for their helpful comments and thoughts. Thank you so much for the insights!

**Fall 2008**

From the moment they speak to Sheriff Sloan this case becomes personal to Beckett, a chance to right the wrongs of shoddy police work. The chance to bring the kind of closure to a family that she herself had been denied only makes her more determined.

Somehow Castle gets this. It’s unsettling how well he can read her.

“That what happened to your dad?”

See? Unsettling. 

Beckett’s not sure she can pinpoint what makes her confide in him once they’ve wrapped the case. 

“It was my mother.”

Maybe it’s because when Beckett’s really stuck she’s found that Castle will play out the story to its final truth. As much as she ridicules the stories he spins about their victims, sometimes in their back and forth about a case, she feels more of a kindred spirit with him than with the cops she works with every day. Ryan and Esposito are excellent detectives, pursuing cases with a dogged determination, but at times during their investigations, she finds herself having to nudge them outside the box in order to find the full truth. Castle, on the other hand, usually isn’t in the same zip code as the box. What she’s beginning to realize, though, is that for every detour there’s an element of genuine insight, that his stories are really just another way of making sense of the facts. And that more and more she’s coming to depend on having him there to bounce ideas around.

Maybe it’s because this case has shown her a side of Castle she didn’t know existed. Given the way that he plays and teases, she wouldn’t have thought he could do serious, but he can and does. And when she starts to tell him the truth, she can see from his expression that he appreciates what it means that she’s sharing this with him. The depth of his understanding takes her by surprise. 

Or maybe it’s because her annoying tagalong is slowly becoming the kind of friend she can really trust.


End file.
